SEO Trademark Wars

A couple of months ago, there was someone who aimed at owning the trademark of “SEO”. As we know this acronym, SEO stands for search engine optimization, defined as

… the art and science of enhancing a web site’s chances of getting ranked on top of search engine results pages once a relevant search is performed.

Jason Gambert, the man in the spotlight regarding this SEO trademark action specified his goal of taking such action in his blog:

My goal in owning the trademark for the word SEO is not to try to force people to change their SEO process, but rather, prevent companies from selling “SEO” as a service under false pretenses.

Seems that the legal battle for jurisdiction for the SEO trademark seems far from over. Towards the end of last month, the battle for “SEO Trademark” remains in court for quite some time. SEOmoz, Arteworks, Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, SEO.com, Jonathan Hochman, and Rhea Drysdale served notices of opposition and so far.

SEO is a term that isn’t a brand name worthy of a trademark ownership. Nobody should be allowed to own the term and prevent others from using it even if SEO services could be used under false pretenses.